Baby I've Changed
by calicoskies4ever
Summary: Both House and Wilson are having difficulty dealing with their separation. Wilson is depressed over Amber's death, and Greg is in pain, and terrified because the only person he's ever let himself care about has left him. More inside.
1. You Used to Love Me

I finally figured out why I keep feeling like I need to write about the time between seasons four and five. I've never explored it from House's point of view, and so that's what this is, except for the bookends at the beginning and very end of the story (next chapter). Both House and Wilson are having difficulty dealing with their separation. Warnings for House/ Wilson slash, child abuse, alternate universe, out of character, and my other usual stuff.

"Well Baby I've Changed  
Won't you come back home  
'Cause I've changed my wicked ways  
And I'll never throw your mail away  
And I won't tell you that your hair looks grey  
And I'll let you listen to Sugar Ray  
And I'll say I love you every day  
'Cause it's true  
Baby I do," Fountains of Wyane.

The first call came on a Wednesday, just before 10:00 PM, about a week after I moved away. I figured it was Cameron, maybe Cuddy, or Dr. Fielding. I didn't look at the caller ID because there was only one person I was trying to avoid and I knew that there was no way he'd feel brave enough to call me after what I'd said and done to him. It made me feel like crap to hurt him so badly, but I couldn't be around the guy and not feel like my heart was being thrown into a wood chipper. I picked up on the second ring.

"Hello," I asked, standing up, and twisting the phone call. The person on the other end still wasn't talking. "Can you hear me?" Somewhere in the back of my mind, I already knew what was happening. No answer. "Hello? Is there anybody even there? I'm going to hang up now," I said, but—of course—I didn't. The other person made a sound somewhere between a cough and a sob. "Goodnight, House." Still nothing. "Don't call back, Please. I don't wanna have to change my phone number again." After three minutes of sitting there and listening to him breathe shallowly, I finally worked up the nerve to hang up. The phone rang again, ten minutes later. I picked up, listened for a second to make sure it wasn't important, hung up, and left the phone off the hook for the rest of the night. Not that it helped me sleep. I got four hours total. The next morning, I got out of bed, checked my messages, put the phone back in its cradle, and went out to get some groceries. I came back, ate—sort of—and then sat at the computer, and watched some of the web cam movies Amber and I had made. That day I got four more silent phone calls. Friday there were three, and nine over the weekend. I thought about ripping the phone out of the wall, and throwing it out the window or something, but couldn't. _Because you still love him, _part of me thought. _Might as well move back and let the guy live with you. _ When he called, I 'spoke' to him every single time—all but once—usually the same sort of things. "I can't do this, please hang up. I'm going now. Don't call me any more. I don't wanna talk to you," and lastly, "Goodbye Greg."

On Monday I had group therapy, and stayed out of the apartment from 10:00 to 3:00. I was home for less than five minutes when the phone rang again. "You know I have caller ID, right? I can—and will, screen my calls…from now on. If your phone number shows up, or a number I don't recognize—I'm not answering again. Got it?" I heard him swallow, once again trying to keep from crying (I thought) but there still wasn't a response. "Or—if you limit it to one call a day, I might not get so mad. Alright," I asked, not expecting him to answer. He didn't. So, I sat there for another twenty minutes, and then hung up. I expected him to call right back, but he didn't.

GHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGH

I stopped keeping track of all the times I tried to call Wilson (and chickened out as soon as I heard his voice) about midway through Saturday but that last one on Monday was—different. I'd almost worked up the nerve to repeat what I had tried to whisper to Cuddy when I woke up after the seizure, when he said I could call him every day, as long as I limited it to one call.

Jimmy and I had been friends, best friends, for twenty years, lovers for the last fifteen of them, and he had been telling me 'I love you' almost from day one. I had never been able to say it back to him, hadn't even been able to say I love you to Stacy. But he understood that stuff. Sort of.

I was in my office during that phone call. I had been hiding out in there all day every day since he left. I leaned back in my chair, popped my headphones into my ears, and closed my eyes. I started to visualize the room the way it had been before we started working there, the two of us surveying the new territory, almost a decade ago.

"I dunno," the younger me had told the then younger Jimmy. "These offices sort of suck and Cuddy isn't _that _hot. Even if she showers in front of or with me, still not worth the change, or this hideous view."

"Well, it _is_ cloudy out. On a nice day, you'll probably be able to see…clear across the parking lot," he'd joked, upon stepping out on the little balcony thing. "And how often are you gonna come out here anyway?" I stopped vaulting over the patrician (going back and front from 'his' side to 'mine') just long enough to let him see me shrug. Then, I went back. "On the plus side, being this close will make at work quickies really simple." I didn't say it at the time (or ever) but I only agreed to work there because he was doing the same. Now, he was gone and Cuddy hadn't so much as mentioned the clinic around me, let alone try and make me go down there.

_Don't know if I really exist without him around, _I wondered. Then I thought, _okay, even I think I'm taking too many Vicodin. _Of curse, I quickly realized that I actively tried to make myself invisible. I started wearing sunglasses and headphones at all times. I didn't even need to turn the music on. All the paitents figured I was one of them and the staff knew to leave me alone. This didn't bother me too much though and, as usual, not everyone was ignoring me. If I ever actually got worried about it, I could convince myself that Cameron proved my existence. Two to four (usually three) times a week, she stopped by my office with a Ruben and an offer. "If you want to—talk, I'm here," she'd say. I was due for a visit that afternoon, and I seriously considered saying something—even I it was a lie—just to get a little bit of he garbage out of my head. Suddenly the reason for my calls became obvious. I actually missed Wilson, needed him _and worse than that, Foreman's coming, _I thought.

"Hate to bother you, Maestro, but we've got a case," he said. _Maybe if I throw myself off the roof and break my neck Jimmy will come back, _I thought, still unable to think about anything besides his having left me—the one thing I was always afraid of when it came to him._ He still wouldn't love me, but he might feel guilty enough to stay by my side until I fall asleep one night and…_I pulled the headphones out of my ears because Foreman looked like he had something important to say. I mouthed the word, 'huh.'

"Case," he repeated. I closed my eyes and counted to ten but he didn't go away. Two more pills and I was good enough to go into the other room and deal with the team, but I only half paid attention as they talked about our post-transplant patients.

"Could be cancer," somebody said, and part of me wondered if they were all conspiring to get me to talk to Wilson. Even if it wasn't intentional, I couldn't stop it. I tried to tell them that I couldn't be cancer but they stared at me, oddly.

"Find something else and treat them for that," I ordered. "I'm going home." They only tried to stop me as a formality. I got on the bike and started to drive back towards my apartment, only…couldn't make myself go inside. I sped past the parking lot three times before giving up. Almost went over to Jimmy and Amber'splace. Then, I remembered. That's when I realized I only had three places in the whole world to go (work, home, Wilson's) except for bars and strip clubs and they didn't count.

"Too bad you can't get drunk someplace fun anymore," the, cold, cruel part of my brain said. It wasn't out loud, and I knew it wasn't real but it was just as upsetting for me to think these things as it would have been had someone else said them "Wilson isn't around to pick us up, and we all know you can't stop at just one or two."

_I just need to see his face. I know, I know…I'm pathetic, and I can't even handle two weeks of solitude. _I always said I wanted to be alone, but it didn't take long to realize that all I really wanted was to be alone—with Jimmy. At least I knew where he was. I probably would have driven into a tree if I couldn't find the guy.

"Oh good, nothing like suicide to brighten up our day," I mocked. I drove the rest of the way to his apartment, and sat outside, watching the windows for movement. I could tell he was inside, but I couldn't get off my motorcycle. I could see him, sort of. He was moving back and forth probably from room too room but I couldn't tell where he was going exactly. I did know he wasn't eating. Whenever he's really messed up emotionally, he gets horrible stomachaches, nausea, sometimes worse. He needed somebody to take care of him, make sure he ate something, make sure he was safe, healthy, but he wouldn't let me inside. "Like you could actually get the guts to go with him."

Engine off, kickstand down, feet planted on the asphalt, I sat silently for over an hour, trying to think about anything except tat look in Jimmy's eyes when he said, "I don't love you anymore." Even if those weren't his exact words, that's what he meant. He knows my most sensitive areas. What he said had roughly the same effect that punching my leg, just on top of the scar—right over it—a good fifteen or twenty times would have had. My leg was hurting worse without him around.

"Go away," I was able to hear Wilson say, his voice right beside me, and I jumped—out of fear, or nervousness, or whatever—fell, and landed so hard that I damn near killed myself. "Need a hand getting up?" It's not until he said those words that I actually looked at the guy. Jimmy looked like crap. His hair was messy, like he hasn't washed or brushed it in—longer than it's been since I last did mine—and there were dark circles under his eyes. He was wearing pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt in the middle of the afternoon, and he looked like he might have lost weight, in a sickly way. _He isn't eating,_ I realized, but whether it was from the stomachaches from feeling like crap or from the heartache that made him feel like crap, I couldn't tell.

"I wanted to throw myself off the roof of the hospital but I think this might keep me going a few extra days," I explained, holding up my bleeding scratched forearm, showing off what would be a nasty bruise. He sighed, hard, like my being there hurt him as much as being away hurt me. "I can fix it at home. Probably shouldn't of come here to begin with." He lifted my hands up into his, pulling me up. Jimmy kissed my arm, softly.

"Do you even have Band-aids, antiseptic cream, cotton balls, gauze, tape, anything?" I felt my head shake back and forth even though I meant to say yes. "Come on. I'll do this, only this. Oh, and be quiet. If you start doing that—thing, I'm not gonna be able to keep from throwing both of us of the roof."

"As long as you don't end up a cripple, or didn't get sent to jail 'cause I died and you didn't, probably wouldn't mind—hell, I'd like that." I should have known better than to say it, but after not talking to anybody for almost four months, I guess I sort of forgot how to fake good conversation skills. Wasn't very good at talking to people to begin with, but it had gotten way, way worse. All the stuff I was usually able to hide kept slipping out when I had no intention of letting it do so. "I miss you," I said, watching as he held my arm steady, gripping it like I was some kind of smelly clinic patient he couldn't care less about. "I really screwed up this time, didn't I?" He said nothing, did nothing; he actually stopped bandaging my arm.

"I told you not to talk." He even gave me the silent, judgmental look. I nodded, but suddenly felt the desire to rip my own heart out. "I know this is hard, Greg but I need—we can't keep on doing this okay?" I couldn't say anything. "I miss you too, but," he started to say, and then he stopped cold dead.

"I'll be good," I swore. Jimmy looked like someone, I was pretty sure it was me, had punched him in the stomach. It was just as bad for me as it was for him, only I didn't get to do any of the stuff he was doing. "I didn't mean…sorry, Jimmy. I am sorry. I just want you to—you know—do…something. I'm not doing so good right now. Just, I'm not—and you can't tell anybody I said this—but I'm nothing without you."

"You don't really believe that, do you Greg?" I looked at his feet. "Oh damnit!" I felt myself flinch and pull away even though I was trying real hard to be a big, brave boy. "Crap."

"I know," I admitted, sucking in my breath, and holding it for more than forty seconds before letting the air out again. "I don't blame you for hating me. Even I don't like who I am. It's just—better than the alternative." He sighed, rubbing his lips with the back of his hand. "Can't you just come back and hate me from close by? Please, Jimmy, I need you." But he didn't talk yet. He said nothing, just watched my eyes and stuff, like I was a disgusting bug.

"I don't hate you," he swore, very gently, in a whisper, as he reached over, stroking the side of my face. "You're okay," he said. "It hurts so much right now—for both of us, but we are going to be alright. I just need some time. That's what this is and nothing else."

"But you said—" I started to say. He cut me off.

"I was talking out of my ass because I'm in so much fucking pain that I can't even think straight. You know what that's like, don't you?" I nodded, squeezing my hand into a tight, little fist. "There you go, all patched up. Now get out before I hurt you again."

"I know I should go, but I'm confused because you just said…" I hadn't been that confused since I was five and we all know what happened back. Wilson held onto my hand, unballed my fist, and slid my palm in between both of his.

"I only said what I said in my office because I thought it would make you hate me so much that you'd never wanna see or talk to me again. I love you, and I want us to be together forever but, right now, I can't stand to be around you. I know it doesn't make sense, but it is how I feel. Bet you can understand that one too. Now please, get out of here before I say anything else to hurt or upset you." I didn't want to leave, and I couldn't handle being there. I was stuck. I was hurt, scared, confused, and I needed to jump him, or have him jump me, at least I was pretty sure that was what I wanted. I tend to get confused when it came to sex, maybe even more confused than I get about emotional stuff. _I need something, something good, anything_, I thought, begging the mean part of me to keep quiet.

"You said right now," I started to say, and for the first time since he'd invited me in, I looked at him, and really saw the guy. Sure, I'd noticed the physical signs of his exhaustion and whatnot before, but this time I saw something else. Jimmy looked as bad on the outside as I felt on the inside, which meant he could very well have been hurting even more than me. "It suggests that your feelings might change, eventually—and they will, right?" He still said nothing. "Please, I need to know I this is a forever thing. I can't handle eternity or—whatever if this is…but if you say that you might, someday ten or twelve years from now, maybe be able to, I dunno, have coffee—even I it's only every once in a while, that gives me something to look forward to. Something to—then I just might be able to dig my fingernails into the dirt and hold on until you change your mind."

I wanted to stop myself there, but I still couldn't control it. "Otherwise and I know I'm talking too much again so, sorry but I need to know. Because, as of right now, I don't know if I can make it. I need to know if there's a reason for me to hold on, or if I should just let go." I didn't mean to say that last part. Jimmy looked like I kicked him, again. I the looking t him like that, probably as much as he hates seeing me drunk or stoned, or both. "Sorry, didn't mean to say—"

"That you're suicidal," he gulped. I didn't know how to respond. I had said almost the exact same thing before, but he didn't seem all that worried then. Maybe because it had been a joke then and he knew it had been a joke, so it didn't freak him out as much.

"Maybe he still doesn't feel bad," that part of me joked. I almost barfed. If I'd denied how I felt, we'd would of gotten into an argument and everything would be a Hell of a lot worse.

"I'm not cutting myself in the candle-lit den, with melodramatic pop songs blaring on the stereo. I just—before I met you I was nothing…well I had nothing—you know what I mean—and now," I stammered. "We've been, together for forever. But I—I…now—sorry, Jimmy. I'll stop. Just don't look at me like that ever again. I won't even ask for help on the case!"

"You came all the way out here because of a case?" I nodded. He smiled, sort of. "You do realize that there are other oncologists in this world, right? Ones whose lives aren't in shambles." I shrugged helplessly. "Okay, quick consult—referral. That's it. Tell me what kind of cancer you think the patient has and I'll tell you who to go to." I didn't say anything again but I think he could tell what the problem was, not because I was giving anything away, he just knows me. "You don't know what kind it is, huh?"

"We're not even sure it _is_ cancer," I admitted, although I hadn't planned on it. He had—has—a way of making me do all kinds sorts of things he thought I oughta do but I didn't feel like. I handed the file over. He looked at it for several minutes, put it down, and sighed. "I should probably just…go."

"Look—um, about the thing you asked me before, give it a couple more weeks, and then ask again. Keep calling, and for gods sakes say something. You can talk to me. It'll help you. Okay, Baby?" I sniffed. "But don't come over without calling—same goes if I ever don't pick up." I was afraid of his last statement. He'd always answered. Jimmy's having picked up all those other times, made me wonder—worry—if perhaps he was also in danger of _hurting _himself.

Still, I nodded, even though I wanted to scream at and kick the crap out of him. _I _was the one that had a bus dropped on my head. He had no reason to be mad at me. Besides, it wasn't entirely my fault. Amber didn't hafta come to get me. She could have found Jimmy, and he would have come to pick me up and everything would have been fine. Even if she hadn't gotten him, even if shed insisted on coming to the bar herself, she hadn't needed to follow me onto the bus. If she had left me alone, everything would have been okay, but…this was not my fault—not completely—and he had no right to act like it was, to make me feel lie I was responsible or bad. I did enough of _that_ myself. It wasn't that I hadn't heard what he was saying, but I didn't completely believe it. I'm pretty sure the only reason he hadn't thrown me out and slammed the door in my face (or on my hand) was because he knew I didn't completely believe him and he probably knew I blamed myself for Amber dying.

"I'm sorry, Wilson. I know this whole thing is my fault and I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—I didn't want this. Please don't hate me." Before he could say anything else, I popped up, grabbed my file, and left. Didn't go back to the hospital—couldn't—just drove to my apartment. When I got there, I looked at my machine. Two new messages. Both from Wilson. The first was him calling to check and see if I got home, and make sure I was "okay."

The second message insisted I not read too much into the first one. He said, I had looked really messed up and he was worried I might run over some helpless pedestrian with my bike. "And don't forget to change the dressings on your arm!" Beep! After that, I thought the message was over, but it wasn't. Jimmy had stayed on the phone—I told myself it was because he was hopping I'd pick up—for a minute and a half but he didn't say anything. Now I knew how he felt when I called and didn't talk. It scared me bad enough that I decided to not do it to him ever again. I replayed the last half of that message twice before deleting it—"you really are a masochist," my brain teased. I kept the first message. The machine told me I now had _two _saved messages, but I had no idea what the first one was. So, I hit play.

"Hey, Greg. Obviously you're not home yet. I just wanted to call and make sure we're still on for tonight but you're probably still stuck in traffic and can't answer me. I'll call you back in ten minutes. And don't forget to go to the bank. I'm not loaning you money so we can play poker. It's like I'm playing against myself. Even if I totally kick your ass, it doesn't feel like I've _won _anything. It's just plain stupid. Bye. Oh, wow! I'm sorry; I almost forgot. I love you."

I'm not usually the sentimental type, but for some reason hearing these three words hit me harder than they ever had before and worse (or maybe better) they hit me harder than the cold, hateful ones ever could. I suddenly needed to hear them again and again and again. I vaguely remembered the day this call had been from but still had no idea why I'd saved the message back then. It wasn't as if 'I love you' was a phrase he guarded with his life. He said it all the time. Still, I was glad I had done what I did.

I poured myself a shot of bourbon, downed it with one sip, and went to refill my glass, but was starting to wonder how much it actually helped, if there was really a point. I drink a lot, often too much, and yet I almost never thought there was a problem, not even when Wilson lectured me about it. And yet, there I was, seriously considering the possibility of pouring all my alcohol down the drain.

"For what," my brain asked. "You think he'll come back if you stop drinking? He wouldn't come back if you quit the Vicodin and the booze, and the swearing, and got rid of the motorcycle."

_No_, I whispered. I answered out loud even though I was alone. _It's not true._

"He's never coming back," it teased.

_But he said—_

"He lied," it taunted, clearly enjoying this. "No wonder nobody likes us!" That was the last coherent thought I had all day. I finished the nearly empty bottle, too a couple extra Vicodin, and then lay down on the sofa, and spent the rest of the—who knows how long—curled up, trying not to cry. In the end, my stupid Machismo didn't matter much. The tears came out of me when I was asleep. The next morning, I replayed the 'I love you,' message eight times before going to work. I solved the case. The next few weeks I went to work every day. At night, I'd come home, have a few drinks, and took too many pills, passing out in the same place, sometimes alone, sometimes with Steve McQueen sitting on my shoulder, or my chest.

Work went back to the way it was before my visit to Jimmy's. Luckily I didn't have to deal with too many people on any given day—save for Cameron's moronic attempts to rescue me with free sandwiches and French fries, and then I'd get to go home, be by myself.

A week went by. I came home one night, replayed the 'I love you' message another dozen times and preformed for my nightly ritual. Sometime later, the phone rang. I looked at the clock. 3:27. Who_ the Hell calls at this time of night, _I thought, and worried that Jimmy was dead. "Hello," I said, peeling my tongue off the roof of my mouth.

"Greg," my mother's voice sobbed. _No, no, no, _I screamed silently _I can't handle this right now!_ "It's your father." Part of me expected her to say he'd been arrested for touching someone's little kid, but then I remembered the stuff about his heart finally starting to give out, and I knew what she was going to say—for the most part—before she said it. "He's dead." _Thank god, _I thought and then, _what god? _

"Okay," I managed to say, like the small, sad little boy I am, and some how it didn't sound ecstatic. She asked me to deliver a eulogy. _No way. I can't even go. Sure as Hell not gonna say nice stuff about the guy who used to treat me like a poorly trained, worthless dog who he could beat the crap out of, that nobody would ever care about. _

"Although, he was right about that last part," the voice in my mind taunted again. "Even Wilson doesn't like you."

"I—I…" I may have said something else. It's so hard to say. I was half passed out, scared, and the most evil person I'd ever had to deal with, who had abused me in every way imaginable, had just died. I don't really—I remembered listening to the phone call, or rather _not _listening to the call, and drinking another bottle of Jack Daniels and then I lay down and…well, that's about it. I didn't black out, just fell asleep. Before I did, I remember thinking _if I ever needed something from Jimmy, it's now. Not to get me to the funeral— 'cause if I get up in front of those people, I don't think I can control what I say. _I actually only say about 25% of the of the stuff that pops into my head, but so much of it ends up being inappropriate, so nobody realizes that I _do _have a filter. _No, I need Jimmy because I need to tell somebody what happened, and if I don't say it to him—who knows where this shit will spill out!_


	2. I Don't Know You Anymore

AN: so the second chapter ended up being a lot longer than I thought it would. So, this is chapter two, and then I'll finish the last part tomorrow or the next day sometime.

"I would like to visit you for a while, get away and out of this city.  
Maybe I shouldn't have called but someone had to be the first to break.  
We can go sit on your back porch, relax; talk about anything.  
It don't matter. I'll be courageous if you can pretend. that you've forgiven me," Darren Hayes and Daniel Jones.

Everybody at work was equally horrified and disgusted when I showed up and acted like "Dad's"—I never thought of him as my father, even before I knew he wasn't—death didn't mean anything, and by my refusal to watch the idiots who did care put him in the ground. Luckily, I spent the eleven hours between when I went t bed and when I should have woken up, sleeping on and off for half hour periods, and practicing how to keep my mouth shut so that phrases like "he beat the crap out of me, on a regular basis," or "get someone he didn't molest or rape to talk about him."

Throughout the morning it started to hurt more and more, and when Cuddy came with the shot, I came so close to telling her, that I had to make up the world's lamest, stupidest excuse for not going to see 'Daddy' get buried. I should have realized that Cuddy had something else on her mind because she didn't give me the look when I said what I did.

That should have been clued number one. The shot itself should have been my second clue. The 'something is wrong' alarm should have been going off too loudly to ignore. Too bad the 'voice' in my head, my subconscious had gotten so noisy that I couldn't hear anything else. Plus, I'd basically regressed to the psychological state of toddler—not that anybody noticed. So, when a terrifying grownup told me to pull my pants down, it didn't occur to me that I may have had a choice.

I made a quick, sarcastic comment, without having to think about it. I figured out what she'd done before the drugs had fully kicked in, but I didn't have time to actually do anything about it. I couldn't fight it. Although honestly, even though I'd been drugged and forced to do things I didn't want to before—and I hated it then—I wasn't _that _mad at Cuddy.

XX

Or Wilson. Waking up in the car with him made me feel like I was waking up after some horrible nightmare. _It's over, _was my first coherent thought. _He's back. Doesn't matter what Jimmy says, this means something. Means a lot. _

"I'm only doing this for your mother," he lied, or maybe he actually believed what he was saying. I knew he probably wasn't ready to admit it to himself, but I had half of him back, and at least a day to get the rest of the guy.

"Where are my pills," I asked, already pretty sure how he was gonna respond, but I still almost threw myself out the window when he only gave me a single Vicodin. "Please, I swear I won't say another word until we get there." He didn't think about it at all before saying no. _This is gonna be harder than I thought. _I tried the door. _Kiddy-proof. That's how he sees me._

"I'm in your car. You put a childproof lock on the door. I have to go talk to a group of people I barely even know about a man I never even liked, while simultainiously pretending that you don't hate me—and don't give me that little speech about how you don't really hate me because we both know that you sort of do. Those little white pills you're hoarding are the only escape I have left." He wasn't really listening. So, I switched tactics. "I could take every pill I have left in the next ten seconds and they'd still be out of my system before we get there." He had that look in his eyes, the one he always gets before he's close to a decision of some kind. He was standing on the fence in between the two choices. So, I pushed him towards my side. "Did your dad ever hit you," I asked, gearing up for the best con job ever.

"House—" he started, but Jimmy must of seen my face out of the corner of his eye. If I looked even a hundredth of a percent as bad as I felt, the Vicodin was as good as mine. "I think I got a spanking…once. Sort of. Didn't really, hurt and he felt so guilty afterwards that he gave me a popsicle. I stole a toy truck—shoplifted—when I was seven, and got caught. That's when it happened."

"You know those scars on my shoulders, ass, and the back of my legs? Those are from…got the one on my left leg for accidentally knocking over a glass of milk at dinner. The two on my right leg came from the night I shoved him to get him to stop hitting my mom. Bad enough you make me go to the evil bastard's funeral, but you can't keep me sober too." Wilson pulled the car onto the shoulder, put it in park, turned and stared into my eyes for what felt like hours. I knew I could have tried to look strong, acted like this was just another attempt to try and get him to let me go home, but I really needed him to believe me, and a couple extra pills. "Thanks," I said, when he gave me two extras. "I wanted to tell you a million times. It's just not—I…it's hard to talk about, especially some of the really bad—I'll shut up now." He looked like hearing me talk was making his pain worse.

"You don't have to do that. Maybe I'll—maybe it'll help me think of an excuse for you to not give a eulogy. You have to go. I'll sit with you, and you can squeeze my hand if you get scared. Afterwards, I'm probably going to need a couple of weeks to—it's still…I don't hate you. This is way more complicated than you're trying to make it. I need to be sure you understand that this is not about me hating you, I still need alone time." I nodded, but didn't believe any of it. _Maybe he does love me, _I told myself, _but if I don't convince him to come back in the next couple of days, he'll never have anything to do with me again. _

"You don't hafta do that. Hand me over to my mom, and wait in the car. As long as you've still got my pills, I won't run. So—I mean, you shouldn't hafta sit through another funeral," I said, because it was the kindest way I could say what I was feeling.

"I know you're probably trying to be nice, but…" His left hand let go of the wheel momentarily, groped around for a second before finding my left leg. He squeezed gently, "I'm not leaving you alone, not for this—not considering what he did to you." This time, I meant yes when I nodded. He smiled, quickly. I leaned my head back, closed my eyes and tried to think of a way to stall again, maybe for long enough to miss the whole funeral this time. Having Jimmy around was barely enough to get me through the church door. I didn't wanna see my 'dad' again. I didn't want to sit in a stuffy room with his friends and family, watching them cry and pretending I was upset about my daddy being dead too. I couldn't go. I wouldn't. It was _not_ an option.

An idea hit me all of the sudden. If I got us out of the car, I could get rid of Wilson's keys. That might get us stranded, and we would have to waste time getting them back. It would kill some time, a couple of hours if I was lucky. Maybe by then I would have worked up the nerve to tell him about the other stuff.

"I gotta pee," I said, and everything from there went exactly as I'd planned, except for one thing…my courage or rather lack there of. I'm such a pussy. I even agreed to help him get the keys back. Sort of.

XX

"I suppose I could talk about the summer he decided to stop speaking to me," I said, half about 'dad' and half about Wilson. He put down the flashlight, and looked up at me with that sad, guilty expression on his face. "Everything he wanted to tell me, he typed up on a little sheet of paper, and slid under my door each morning." _Too bad I couldn't think of something to say that would stop him from ripping the door open each night and crawling into bed with me._

"There's something you aren't telling me," he said, winding the flashlight some more. "It's—I…what's wrong?" I shrugged. "Hold this." I dropped the thing down the sewer but he didn't even flinch. He had _another _one.

"You have two battery-free flashlights in your trunk?" No words escaped those chapped, little lips, just an annoyed grunt. "What about you, Jimmy," I asked, rubbing his back when he leaned over to fish his keys out of the drain. He looked away. "You act like everything's a-okay, but it's not. You're not actually any better than you were right after Amber died. You're just pretending like you're getting better because you can't handle—I dunno how to say it, but I can see how messed up you are."

"You wanna kill time, kill time. You wanna skip the funeral, okay, we'll skip the damn thing, alright? Let's go to Chuck E. Cheese instead! You wanna call me names, mess with my head, we can do it all, but don't talk about stuff you don't understand!"

"I understand what it's like to try and convince people you're normal and healthy, when you're really losing it," I started to explain, but he found the keys and we were back in the car, heading towards certain doom, before I could think of what to say to him. "I'm sorry," I said, and it almost sounded sincere. "I thought you said I didn't hafta go if I don't want to."

"Give me one good reason why you shouldn't, and we will turn around, go back to your place." I sighed, and started working on a story, a way of telling him what he needed to know to get me out of the funeral, but not enough so he would make the 'oh my god, everything make sense now,' face. I was trying to avoid telling him about the sex stuff, because I didn't know if he'd believe me.

"I can't!" I'm not sure which one of us was more surprised by this reaction, but if it was him, he sure recovered fast…Jimmy just kept on driving. "If I tell and you think I'm exaggerating or making it up because I'm a pathetic, messed up, evil loser, or whatever, I—I dunno. I really don't know what would happen if you didn't believe me."

"For somebody who promised not to say anything until we got there, you sure talk a lot," was his only response, but I couldn't tell if he knew what I was getting at and believed me, or if he thought I was just afraid to expand on the "spankings." I knew that Wilson was messed up. I knew he needed help. I knew he needed a push in the right direction. I just wasn't sure what any of those things were or how to give it to him.

"He's not really my father," I explained. This tactic had nothing to do with me not wanting to go. It was just a test, to see if he believed anything I said. So, I told him part of the whole story.

"What did he do when you announced your discovery?" Wilson once again, only missed out on sounding sympathetic by about _this _much. _He broke my arm in three places and then didn't say a word to me all summer. _

"I already told you, he gave me the silent treatment, froze me out completely. Back then, I thought I wasn't even worth being talked to…made me feel like—made me feel even more worthless than usual. Now I know better. He was just throwing a temper tantrum, like a four-year-old. But that's just who he was. Sir demanded nothing short of total obedience. If you were two minutes late to dinner—regardless of the excuse 'cuz there aren't any—you didn't eat. Forget to call him sir, or say thank you every time my mom did the laundry, or—and none of this matters because you don't care." Jimmy pulled over again. This time he turned the engine off completely, got out of the car, helped me to do the same, and then he hugged me tightly, holding on for an uncomfortably long time.

"I'm not making you do this because I think he deserves to hear you say you love him from up there, or down there. I believe you; that guy was absolutely a monster and you don't owe him a thing. In fact, if we get a couple of minutes alone with the corpse, I'll never tell anybody if you wanna go ahead and set him on fire, or punch him in the kidneys a couple hundred times." I was trying to not let him see how confused I felt but it obviously didn't work because Jimmy explained further. "What I said earlier is still true. Your mother needs you to come, and I don't care if your real dad is a five-headed space alien from Uranus—she _is _your mom and she loves you. You love her too, right?" I nodded. "So do you understand now?" I nodded, but still had every intention of making him pull the car over every ten minutes so that we could be late enough to miss my eulogy.

XX

"I need help," I admitted; when we were driving over Kentucky state line. This time, his hand landed on top of mine on it's first try. "What do I say? If I go with the truth, I come out looking worse than him, and I run the risk of making her so sad and so mad that she'll never be able to look at me again. If I lie, then it's like he won and the image of him as this great father will live on forever—in everyone's mind except hers. She'll know I lied and she'll come up to me afterwards, demanding the truth. I get mad, hurt her worse." Wilson picked my hand up and squeezed. "Is that you're way of telling me I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't?" He sighed, but said nothing. He neither comforted me nor suggested I suck it up and be a man.

"Hmm, that is a pickle. What if we tell your mom you are too grief stricken to go up there and by we I mean me, because I know how hard it is for you to even talk to her, let alone lie to her." I wanted to smack my forehead, and make fun of him, but once again I held back.

"I can't lie to my mom. Nobody can. Say whatever you want, but she isn't believe it. She'll make that face, and I'll give in—and then I'm right back in the same position as before." I sighed, pressed my head against the window. I considered bashing my head into it over and over but I wasn't sure if breaking the window would do more than give me a headache and a few nasty cuts. If that were the case, all I'd do is make Jimmy even madder at me.

"How about I say you don't trust yourself to not say something inappropriate, and that you don't want to ruin everything. It's close enough to truth to fool the human lie detector, right?" I shrugged. He was probably right, but it didn't sound like something I'd say so it was just as likely that she'd figure it out anyway. "But it's not enough o the truth to let her know there's anything wrong."

"You can say whatever you want, still isn't going to help." Jimmy sighed again. My team called and that wasted some more time but for the most part, I couldn't think about anything except discovering the truth about my father. I no longer cared about the evil bastard who used to get a kick out of me, putting his cigarettes out on some of the more sensitive areas of my body. Okay, I cared a little bit, but I knew that if he wasn't really my father, if I could know for sure, it would help me somehow. It would mean…I wasn't sure what it would mean, but it would help. It had to.

"Whatever happens later, I need to apologize for my behavior now," Wilson said when I hung up, after talking to my team. "I treated you like crap, which you didn't deserve. I left you, which I'd promised would never happen, and I made you think that what happened to Amber was your fault, when it wasn't." I sighed, pressing my head against the window. "Does any of this help?" _I dunno; would my saying I'm sorry I killed your girlfriend make you feel better? _"How about we go out for drinks afterwards, and you can tell me what a horrible monster he was?"

"I dunno, Jimmy. I'm not exactly in the best shape right now, don't think I'm gonna react too well to you strolling in and out of my life whenever it's convenient." I watched Jimmy rub his mouth roughly. He was dressed, had showered, washed and brushed his hair and stuff, but he still looked like he had that day at his apartment.

"No, Greg, you don't understand," he explained, holding my hand again. "I'm not—I need to ask you a favor. Can I stay with you until I can find a place in town again? Hopefully Cuddy will let me have my old job back. I'm not," he babbled. More rubbing. I wanted to hug him or something, but he was still driving. "It'll be just like before."

"No, it won't," I practically growled. "I forgive you. No problem. Hell, I forgave you that afternoon when you said you didn't hate me—even if I didn't believe it—and hadn't meant any of that stuff you said right before you moved."

"But I still said all of that crap, and you believed it. I left you and now you don't know whether or not you can trust me anymore. Even if I don't walk away again, don't hurt you ever again, you know I'm capable of it and you're always going to wonder when it's gonna happen," he explained and was almost right, so I just left it alone. "Do you want—well want is the wrong word, you need to get up there and talk in front of those people, don't you?" I nodded again. "But you're also afraid, because you know you can't stop yourself. You'll start with something like, 'when I was little I used to think he was just mean and sometimes he was, but now I can also sort of understand why he did some of the stuff he did.' Then you'll wish you hadn't said something that nice, so you'll reveal a secret, or bash him. And maybe you'll be able to stop yourself before you make your mom cry, and maybe you won't. I think that's what you're most afraid of, because you don't like being the sort of person you are right now."

"What are you talking about? I love that nobody ever holds me responsible for anything. I love that I can take all the pills I want, do anything I like, eat whatever I want, say what pops into my head—okay, you might, maybe be sort of, kinda right. I just wanna be able to…act like… I just want you to treat me like I'm a real person. I want everybody to do that, but you're the only one I'll ever get it from. So, I'll live with that. And I want people to be surprised once in a while. I want them to look at me like I'm _not _the kind of person they accept and expect this stuff from." Jimmy smiled, gently, and patted me on the arm.

"Well then, I guess you only have one option." _Huh? I hate it when he gets stuff faster than me, _I thought. _I'm supposed to be the smart one! _"I'll tell your mom you can't do the eulogy. She'll understand. And if you feel like you need to say something—uh—"

"If I need to make a 'me' comment," I finished his sentence, a little afraid of how he might have said if I hadn't. He looked pretty uncomfortable while I—the one who was having he worser day (although not by much)—had to just sit there and pretend to brave. "I can lean over and whisper them to you discretely." _If I'm capable of that._ He nodded, still staring straight ahead at the highway in front of us. "You know you don't have to come inside, if it's—too much for you…I'll be okay no matter what, but if you have another—I'm not gonna take you back if you break up with me again. And that goes for any possible future marriages too. If you want, I'll remain your friend, go to the wedding, throw a bachelor party, tongue kiss the bride on the big day, whatever but if you pick some psychotic, beautiful but damaged bi," I started to say bitch but stopped myself. "Girl, I'm not ever gonna let you sleep on the couch when you screw things up with her. And I'll never screw you again either."

It took a few minutes before Wilson responded. Part of me was starting to get scared that he might actually say no to this condition. That part of me was positive. He _was _leaving me, despite of what he said. We would never sit at home, eat pizza, drink beer, and watch anything on TV ever again, it thought. The other part of me wasn't so sure. I wanted Jimmy to come back. I needed him to come back. That half of me was stupid enough to think I had a chance. So, when he opened his mouth to respond, I had no idea what he was gonna say.


	3. Baby I've Changed

"Please remember how I feel about you; I could never really live without you  
So come on back and see, just what you mean to me  
I need you  
Oh, yes you told me, you don't want my lovin' anymore  
That's when it hurt me and feeling like this  
I just can't go on anymore," George Harrison.

"Okay," Wilson said but I didn't believe him. _He's lying, _I thought to myself._ Don't listen to him; he isn't better. Jimmy's just pretending, like those guys who go_ _to A.A. meetings but still have bottles hidden all over their house, _I told myself. Then, the other part of my mind, the meanest part, stepped in.

"Strange isn't it? That _that's _the first place your mind goes to."

"You okay over there," Wilson asked, after several more minutes of me going back and forth in my head like that, trying (and failing) to shut my mind up, trying to self-soothe. "When you get quiet like that, it usually means you're beating yourself up emotionally, yelling at yourself. Be nice to him," he ordered, not at me, not the real me anyhow. "A guy who hit and treated him like crap for eighteen years just died. Plus he's still not sure he believes that I'm really back. Of course, you never let him believe anything nice, good, or comforting. You want him to be miserable all the time; so you won't die." Jimmy wasn't patronizing or mocking me. He just knew how to get me out of my own twisted mind. He was the only one who could make me stop thinking like that, and I had been thinking like that quite a bit more than usual since the accident. "Is that good enough or does the voice need a really long lecture since it's been bossing you around all summer?"

"I don't have voices in my head," I pouted. Wilson nodded, and immediately started to apologize, but he must have seen the tiny smile on my face. He stopped, and let me finish the joke. "I've got multiple personality disorder, not schizophrenia, you moron."

"Oh, well that's so _much_ better. My point was, should I say more or do you feel a tiny bit better?" I didn't. "Okay, let's see. Greg deserves to be treated well, to be happy. If you try and take that away from him, I'll rip your fucking head off. And now, onto you Mr. Grumpy Pants. I know why you're afraid to let me or anyone else in. I get it. But I am not the kind of person who—okay, I did leave once but I won't do it again. Besides, and perhaps more importantly, if you keep holding all of your feelings and thoughts in, you are going to explode. And then who will I hang out with? Everybody else is so weird around me ever since Amber died, but all you—you just keep trying to make me smile, and laugh, and I need that. I need you. Do I need to tell the other you more stuff?" I nodded, lowering my head onto his shoulder, and closing my eyes. "You always hurt him," he said, back to lecturing the voice. "Every time I get Greg to enjoy, look forward to, or hope for something, you take it away from him! You have to let this work; you have to let me make everything better for him. You have to let him, let me help him help himself. Got it?"

"Who does this pussy think he is," one half of my head thought.

_That's Jimmy Wilson. He loves me, and he's gonna take really good care of me, _I told it silently. Then, the thing went all quiet and I almost started to feel like I could deal with Jimmy being around, just as long as he went back to his old self, just as long as he got better. "Was that good," Wilson asked. I nodded again, and this time I was actually okay with what he'd told me.

XX

We were late. We were late and I was grateful because it meant the funeral was almost over. That's what I kept telling myself. I repeated it over and over like a mantra. _I don't have to talk, because it's almost over. _Wilson let me take a couple (I'm pretty sure he didn't see exactly how many, because he didn't give me the look_)_ pills right before we went inside. From there, the funeral was about what I expected. Except for Mom holding up the service until we got there. We were late but it didn't matter because it hadn't even started yet!

"Greg," she said, loosing her grip, after having given me what felt like it had to officially be the 'world's longest hug.' "Your father is dead. I'm sure he doesn't mind." It took every ounce of strength (and Vicodin) in my system to not flinch when she said the f-word. Then, mom leaned in real close and whispered in my ear. "I need to talk to you, but it can wait until after the service. It's very important. So, please wait."

"I don't think I can get up in front of everybody and say…stuff. Sorry. Just—uh, I'm sorry," I repeated. I wanted to say it again but another hug stopped me. She said it was fine, and repeated the part about needing to talk to me. I was seated between her and Wilson, even though I had wanted to sit alone, with Jimmy, so we could talk...even though talking was the last thing I wanted to do.

"Which one is he," Wilson asked, as my mom got up to give her speech. I pointed to my real dad. "Want me to grab some hair off his shirt so we can do a DNA test?" I shook my head. "Wanna go get some from—_him?" _He nodded his chin towards the coffin. I shrugged, but we both knew it meant yes. Then, all of the sudden it got bad, I got bad. I hurt so bad I couldn't take it any longer. "Can you breathe?" I shrugged. I literally wasn't sure. It was so physically and emotionally painful that I couldn't tell."Can you talk? No, okay, let's go get some air, just stay quiet so nobody stares."

"They're gonna _stare_ no matter what," I thought. I could barely manage to think. Saying this, or anything else, was out of the question but he either didn't notice or didn't care. He just helped me out of the room, and stood silently on the sidewalk, while I leaned against him. My leg didn't hurt that bad. I was just too anxious and exhausted to be able to hold myself up.

"It's okay," Wilson whispered, kissing my head. "You're alright. It's okay. I think you might—and I know what you're going to say so hold on—I think it would help if you cry." I didn't interrupt him but I really, really wanted to. "Don't make that face. It's important. I know you hated him, but hate is much more powerful than love, and losing someone who has—_hurt _you like that…it's gotta be even worse than if he had been your best buddy. Then, you'd just be sad because your dad died. But this…he never apologized for hitting you, starving you, or for treating a four-year-old like he was twenty. He was never nice and you never got justice, or closure, or revenge, or whatever you wanna call it. He got away with what he did to you, and you'll never be able to recover completely, because you can't confront him, because you can't get—sorry, I'll shut up now."

"You're doing it again," I said, letting him go, and shifting my weight to a more comfortable position. "You're an addict Jimmy. We both are; it's why we get along so well. We're the same. You're completely focused on me right now, because I'm in crisis mode. You're not thinking about yourself, or your grief, or pain…you're not—I know what you're feeling. I've been where you are." I had to take a really deep breath too keep from sobbing hysterically. It worked, but just barely. "You're turning into me. You're trying to make yourself numb, but it doesn't work. At first, the not feeling anything is good. You really are numb, you're great. Well actually you're not but you don't know any better so you think you are—but after a while, you forget how to be happy, really, truly happy. But then you think back and decide that maybe feeling good isn't worth it after all. You think, 'feeling 'good' was never that good to begin with, so it's not a big deal.' Then, the ordinary, everyday, average, so-so feelings go away and, eventually, there's nothing left but pain. A lot of pain. You think it's gonna go away too, like the other stuff, but it doesn't. That's how it happened to me. That's what's happening to you."

Wilson hugged me. I continued, "You are the only person who can pull me out of this. You can make it feel like I'm not all bad stuff. If you sink into the same hole, nobody will ever be able to pull us out, and I'm—I might not make it without you dragging me out of the water and breathing air into my lungs every once in a while. You know what, never mind. I don't care. If you don't care, I don't care." I had begun to talk with only the intention of telling him the first third of that but hadn't been able to stop. I couldn't even keep myself from crying. "Sorry, Jimmy. I didn't mean to do that to you, sorry."

"I'm fine, Greg. Just relax, please. Everything is going to be alright. I'm gonna continue to save you from drowning over and over until I can get you all the way out of the water and keep you out forever; I will find a way to make you happy. Got it?"

"But you know what I'm talking about, right? You've seen yourself tottering over the edge too, like right after Amber—and you pulled yourself back? That's what you're saying, isn't it?" I watched as Jimmy's eyes scanned the parking lot, desperately looking at the building, then me, and back a couple of times. "If you wanna go inside, I'm feeling much better now."

"No you're not," he replied, giving me a small, gentle squeeze. "You're not going anywhere until I know that you are actually okay. Do you understand—is it okay with you if we do things this way?"

"See, what you did right there? How you looked at me and saw not only what I show the world, the brave face for lack of a better term, and how you looked passed it, and saw the…real me? Well, I can do that too. Now, I want you to think about my ability a little before you tell me everything is just peachy." His hand rubbed his lips some more, actually a lot more. "Be careful, you're gonna wear a hole in those puppies."

"I want—you're not as good at this stuff as you think," he said, sounding like he did when CTB was dying and we didn't know why. I felt just as useless the as I did then. "Okay, so maybe I am a bit messed up in the head. Maybe I am standing over the edge of a giant cliff, in danger of falling, and crashing against the rocks and having my body tossed out into the sea, but I have you, and I have Cuddy, and I have my family, and friends, and the people in my support group. You guys are keeping my feet on the ground. And it's like—I'm not you. I'll be alright, and then we can make you alright, okay?" I wasn't sure whether I believed him, but I also knew there was only so much I could actually do for the guy, especially at my "father's" funeral. "Now, come on, we have to get you a DNA sample."

"I can't believe you just said that. I can't believe you're gonna let me do it…I, this is the sort of thing I suggest and you always say no to." He shrugged, but I was still confused, which was enough to make him say more. "And by the way if you mixed your metaphors anymore in that speech you might have actually killed me."

"I think you finally getting the truth will make it—will bring you a small amount of closure," he explained, gently. "Oh, and thanks or not making me completely lose it and through a bottle through one of the stained glass windows in there, or something." I sort of giggled, hugging him for one quick second. Then, my mom came walking out, looking for something. It turned out to be me. "Guess the ceremony is over," he said. I went over to Mom, stopped, and said hi.

"I'm going to ask you a question, Greg and I need you to answer honestly." I sighed, slipping my hand into my pocket, and feeling around for the pills. They should have been in my left pocket but after almost a minute of looking, I realized that Wilson still had them. "Right before he died your fath—John—told me he had a box of old "mementos" as he called them. He was worried it might be embarrassing if anyone saw them, and asked me to destroy it. I thought maybe the letters he wrote to me when he was—but it—" she started to talk, but her strength seemed to fade about halfway through what she had planned to say. I knew what she was talking about. I hated the thought of her going through a shoe box full of kiddy porn, featuring her only child, almost as much as I hated him for keeping it.

"Jimmy you can go inside. We'll be right there," I ordered, desperately. The only thing worse than being forced to have this conversation with my mother would have been being forced to do it in front of the only man who'd ever really given a crap about me. He didn't know and I didn't want him to know, yet. I wasn't ready to tell him I'd been molested on top of everything else.

"He told me he got rid of those. He swore! I'm so sorry, Mom." She stared at me with wet eyes. "Are you gonna make me say out loud what was in there—because we both know what those pictures showed, and I really don't see how it would help me to…sorry," I said. She hugged me again, and nodded.

"I know what he did. I was not going to ask you about what happened when you were a baby," she said, gently. _Oh great. Now you're going to get all sad and pissy and give her all the horrible details that she has absolutely no desire to ever hear about, and which will hurt her more than finding those photos did. What a wonderful son you are. _Okay, I mouthed. "I know I must be the last person in the world you want to talk about this with…"

"It started on—when I was four, but he didn't make me start posing for those pictures for—he didn't start to take them until about a year later," I said, but she touched my face softly, and shushed me.

"No, sweetie," she whispered. "I could tell—he wrote dates on the envelopes, and organized his Polaroid's in an almost obsessive manner. I don't want to drag the details out of you. Come here, let me—my poor, sweet, wonderful boy. I just want you—I just wish. Why didn't you ever say anything? Not when you were little. Back then, you were just—you couldn't tell me when you it was happening. But you grew up. You left home. I don't mean to upset you, and I know you're uncomfortable, but please; I need to know."

"I was going to but," I started to say, but I managed to stop myself before the rude part slipped out. "I didn't really see a point," I said, which wasn't exactly the truth, but it wasn't a lie either. She made the mommy face. "There wasn't. What good was it gonna do," I asked, pulling away just slightly. I hadn't wanted to ruin her happy marriage to bring myself the small amount of comfort I'd get from having her around. And people say I'm incapable of being anything but selfish.

"I would have left him, and you and I might have been able to be closer—to have a better relationship, sooner. I've always wanted to spend more time with you. I wanted to and I knew you didn't, but I never knew why. Now I know it wasn't me, and it makes me think about all those years we missed." At this point, I would have welcomed an annoying interruption, especially from Wilson but it didn't come. They never come when you need them. "It was true; so you had to have known I'd believe you. You knew I'd—oh, Greg," she sobbed, after pulling back and looking at my face. I was always observant, but I don't think I would have been half as good if I hadn't watched and learned from her for eighteen years. "You are a good man, and there is no reason for you to not have a relationship with me or anybody else," my mother insisted, holding my face in her palms.

"Wait," I said, as what she said sank in fully. "You found those pictures…what, like this afternoon? Last night? Did you know when you called to tell me he was dead?" My mother nodded, and then, as if anticipating my next question, spoke up before I could say 'then why the Hell did you ask me to do deliver a eulogy?'

"I'm not a brave person. I wanted everyone to know what a monster he really was, but I also knew I'd never be able to say anything. I was still in shock. I didn't have it in me to think about whether or not you were ready to tell the world. I couldn't think about what people would think of you for bringing that up here, _now. _I had no right to try and force you to tell everyone. I wasn't trying to hurt you, and I didn't expect—I'm sorry, sweetie." I didn't want to talk about what I may or may not have said, or her wanting me to tell total strangers and distant relatives something I couldn't even talk to Jimmy about. I didn't want to describe what he'd done to me—thankfully she wasn't asking for details—but I decided that there was one thing I could do.

"Mom, you're braver than anyone I have ever known. I can't count how many times you stepped in and stopped him from—_punishing_ me, and I…you stood up for me, protected me, and I know how hard it was for you to do all those things." She sobbed a couple more times, hugged me again, and let go again.

"I'd better let you go," she said, touching my hair for a moment and then pulling her hand away. "Quick, it looks like your Uncle Henry has Dr. Wilson cornered. He's probably talking about that new fishing boat."

"Jimmy's_ my_ friend. He knows how to pretend like he's listening when someone's as boring as all—heck. Didn't seem to help with his ex-wives though." My mom smiled slightly but only because she knew I was making a joke. "Actually you might be right. Jimmy looks like a guppy trying to stare down a great white." That got a real laugh. "And Mom, you know that I—I mean, uh—you—we," I stammered, stupidly.

"I love you too, Greg," she told me in her usual, gentle tone of voice. Uncle Henry was untucking his shirt. Luckily I got there just in time to keep him from showing Wilson some rash on his stomach.

"What'd you, introduce yourself as Doctor Jimmy," I taunted as the two of us found some place where we could chat in private.

"I said I was your friend, and he said, 'so are you a doctor too,'" Wilson explained, trying not to laugh when he saw me roll my eyes. "What was I supposed to tell him?" I laughed even harder.

"You should have lied! You can't go around telling random strangers what you do. They think it's an offer of free medical advice. Especially in my family. My cousin Charlie's two and a half years younger than me and we were sort of close as kids. I was in medical school when he was just stating college. So, every time he got drunk or high or both, he just…finally I started answering my phone by saying, _yes that's a normal reaction. _Jimmy smiled a tiny bit. "I, um—I kinda…do you think we can leave? I don't think I'm pretty sure I'll kill someone if we stick around for more than five minutes." He nodded, pulling my head down onto his shoulder.

"Come one, I'll take you home." I bit down on my lip. "What's wrong? Look, it's gonna take us all night just to get to New Jersey. Do you really wanna go to work then?" I shrugged. "You thinking about your patient?" I nodded. "Okay, we'll go to the hospital then." I was much silent the whole ride home. Wilson knew how messed up I was and he gave me the space I needed. The only thing he said besides, "I'm not going anywhere, I promise," and "you're gonna be okay now," was "here, I got you a present." That's when he handed me a short, silvery hair. I thought about saying thanks, but could barely look at him, let alone speak to the guy.

About an hour before we got to the hospital I managed to think of something. I called my team, had them run some tests, and we saved the girl. He tried to talk me into going home after that, but I didn't—I couldn't. Not yet. I needed to know the truth, to see who my real father was. I wanted it to make a difference.

I convinced myself that had she chosen, she (we) could have left the evil bastard. We could have been given a chance at a better life. My mom and I might of been happy or safe, with somebody nice, somebody who loved us. I never would have been forced to sleep in the yard, like a dog, or been ordered to climb into a bathtub full of ice and freezing cold water. Who knows how normal or even happy I might have become! I could have had anything in the world, anything. Maybe my leg might even hurt less if the rest of me didn't hurt so much.

I think Wilson knew what I was thinking, because he didn't follow me into my office, and stayed outside until Kutner brought in my "clinic patient's" paternity test results. Jimmy walked right up to me, sat down on the edge of my desk, smiled, and reached out, stroking my face.

"I can't open it," I told him, pathetically. "If I'm wrong…" I couldn't even finish that sentence. He knew. He held out his hand. I took it, and squeezed with all my might.

"I'll look. Come here," he whispered. "And then, maybe, we can do something really good for me—for us. If it's positive, do you want me to lie? Would you believe me if I did?" I shook my head, and gave him a dirty look.

"Just get it over with, like a—like ripping of a Band-Aid. Band-Aid on my testicles but fast is probably still better." He nodded, peeling the envelope open, and looking inside. "I hafta see it." I grabbed the paper from him and read the two greatest words of my entire life. "She hated him too." Jimmy stood up, and hugged me. I ripped myself away. "But—why? Why did she stay with him?" I whimpered. Wilson sighed, rubbing my back and pulling me into a tight hug. "He hit her! He hurt her, and he hurt her child!" I was close to crying again. "I thought…"

"I know," he said, holding me even more tightly. "You thought this would change everything, but it doesn't. Right?" I nodded, amazed by his skill. "Wanna hear something that will change everything—sort of? Cuddy gave me my old job back So, uh—maybe if I get you drunk enough, we can trick your mind into thinking that the last month was just one, long, really bad dream. I didn't believe that, but also didn't really care. I had Wilson back. My fake father was dead, buried, and incapable of ever hurting me again. I got up, and followed Jimmy back out to his car.

So he was reaching to turn on the engine, I grabbed his hand, yanked it down, and said, "I—Jimmy, there is something I need to tell you." He nodded, looking me over, very carefully. "I um—he—you know which _he _I'm talking about, right? Good. Easier if I don't hafta explain everything—he _hurt _me, and I'm not talking about "spankings" and stuff anymore." Wilson nodded yet again.

"I know," he said. _He knows? How could he know? Did somebody tell him? Did he tell somebody else? How did he figure it out? Does everybody know? I thought I was hiding it so well, how could I have been so wrong? _

"Sometimes when you're stressed and I mean really, really, really stressed, you talk in your sleep. It doesn't happen a lot. I've only seen—heard—you do it about three times. And I didn't know before yesterday that we could carry on a conversation, while you were sleeping. You'd just say, "he's coming," or "he's gonna get me," but I never though to ask who _he_ was."

"You thought of it yesterday," I said, still trying to figure out just how much he knew, and—perhaps more importantly—how his knowing would change the way he felt about me, how he treated me. I had always believed that not telling people gave me a small amount of power. I got to decide who knew and when. Then, suddenly, I discovered that two people had found out without me consciously telling them, and on the same day. It was ripping my heart in half.

"First I tried to tell you that it was alright. I said you were safe, and even offered to help you find a good hiding place. You said, 'He always finds me and gets even madder because he had to waste time searching.' That's when I asked who was looking for you," Wilson explained, and he looked at me like he was going to cry.

"And I told you everything?" Jimmy shrugged. He didn't know what everything was. I gave him the look again, and he shook his head. "But enough that I don't have to go into pornographic detail, right," I asked. That thought was making me really nervous. I didn't want to talk about the details like that. I had stuffed all of the really horrible stuff into a box, and the memories were threatening to pop out at any minute, so I had to create a miniature version of myself to stay in my mind and sit on the box. If I started telling Wilson about what happened when I was little the mini-me would be thrown off the box and shot up into outer space. The box would open up, and I'd never be able to get it closed again.

"Not unless s it will help you to tell me those things." Even though he told me this in his usual voice, I could tell—from the pain and sadness in his eyes, his hunched shoulders, and wrinkled forehead—that he wanted to hear those things as much I wanted to tell him. "You wanna just go home and finish whatever booze is left in your apartment?" I shrugged because I didn't want him to know I wouldn't be able to be near another person (except him) for at least two or three days. "I'm sorry, Greg. I know you didn't want to be there—God, when you muttered those words in your sleep, I actually did a U-turn across four lanes of traffic, like in the movies, and started heading home…"

"But you turned back around because you thought that seeing him dead would bring me closure or whatever, right?" Jimmy nodded, sadly. "You were right," I said, managing to make my voice sound stronger than the rest of me felt. "You did the right thing."

Then, he reached over the gear shift, hugged me again—with one arm—and said, "I love you." Part of me wanted to make fun of him. Another part wanted to call him a liar, but I just stayed quiet.

"Can we leave, before Cameron or Cuddy or worst of all Kutner walks by, sees us and wants to join in?" And with that, he turned on the car and started to drive of. I think we both knew that very little—if anything—would ever be the same between us again but I wasn't freaking out. I was glad to be with Jimmy again, mostly because he was the only person who had ever understood or liked me—my mother didn't really count because she was my mother. And even though he had no idea how or when, Wilson had promised that he would figure out ways to help me with the pain, with everything, and I was okay with that.

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I'm still not sure exactly what happened, except that House—in his own weird way—had managed to save _me_, to bring me back to the land of the living again. It started in the car, with his little manipulation to get himself more pain pills. Then again, part of me thought he'd said what he said to get me to realize that he still needed me, and I still needed him and needed him to need me.

After we got home from work, I let him drink, and decided that he'd been through enough for one day, but he still wanted to talk, even though I said (insisted) he didn't have too. We discussed his childhood (a little) and the person he'd become because of his childhood (slightly more) and shared funny work stories. I think he just wanted to keep hearing my voice. Hearing me talk seemed to make him comfortable enough to fall asleep.

He slept, stretched out on the couch, his body on top of me, my arms crisscrossed over him, protectively. That night, I dreamt I was sitting in the kitchen of our old apartment, talking t o Amber.

"You like him, don't you," she asked smiling, and I knew that she was meant House. I almost started crying. "Aw, look at the widdle baby." I bit my lip, strengthening up. "I'm sorry James. But it's okay."

"The whole thing was so surreal, part of me almost thinks it might have been her—you know, reaching out to me," I told him later. I knew I was going to be made fun of. There was no question about it. Mention the afterlife to House, get mocked.

"What like form…up there?" He pointed, in mock awe. I tried to keep myself from looking hurt. He still saw it. "I—uh...what else did she say?? There is more, right? That's why you think she—I better stop there. If you flake out and leave again, I'll probably end up dating Cuddy, which could bring about the apocalypse."

"Well, we can't have _that _now, can we?" He smiled, seeming to relax, a lot—as if he had actually been worried about me leaving again. "She said—hey, are you alright? You don't still...okay, okay," I promised, wrapping my arms around him tightly. "I've got you. There's more than enough room in my heart for me to love you, and miss her, and do my job, and have a life. We're okay, okay?" He shrugged, looking away. "Do you need me to stop touching you? Is this—"

"I'm alight with this. I like it." We sat together for several minutes before he broke contact. "I really wasn't all that upset. I just need to get used to you being around for a while. Then, I'll know you're not going away." I was about to promise to give him whatever he needed, whenever he needed it, even if it meant taking some more time off of work, to focus on him. Then, he kissed me, quickly. "Tell me what she said. I'd love—well that might be a bit too strong of a word—I don't want to not hear it." I smiled, and tickled him just long enough to see him smile. He looked even more relaxed.

"She said—maybe you are right. It was probably all just stuff that my mind made up and turned into a dream that would make myself feel better because I miss her so much." Greg sighed.

"I didn't say that. You don't—there's no way to be sure…and I know what I usually say about religion and stuff, but that's always in regard to stupid people. You know about the holes, you think about them…worry about them. If anyone has this thing right—it's you." It was so uncharacteristic of him that I almost thought he was lying, or making fun of me. "Tell anybody I said that and I'll kill you." _There you are, _I thought. "I don't believe in God because I only believe in stuff that can be proven, or shown to me, but that doesn't mean that everybody else has to feel the same way. The only people I make fun of are the ones who don't even think about the proof thing. They don't care about it. Doesn't even occur to them that they might be wrong. And if anyone disagrees with them—well, you know. I'm gonna shut up now, and you're gonna tell me what she said."

"She said me she loved me, and that I should be good—nice—to you. And she said I should ask you to repeat yourself. Amber said you tried to say something when you came out of—after the seizure, you tried to say something, but Cuddy told you not to talk. She told me it was really important."

"Cuddy told you about that, right? She must have! It—it's the only way you could know." I didn't think Cuddy had mentioned it. She just called me up the next day and told me he looked pathetic and was asking for me. The only time I could remember hearing that exact information was in my dream.

"Is that—did you really try and say something?" He nodded. "Do you think you can maybe try and tell me what you wanted to say that night? It was meant for me, right?" Another nod. I let him decide whether or not he wanted to be close, and he chose to scoot closer to my side, and sit next to me, with his head on my shoulder.

"I was gonna say—I thought you were still there. So—I was really confused…I mean, I just had a seizure, a bad one and you'd stuck electrodes in my brain." He seemed more nervous than before. I told him it was alright, and added that I should have been there. "You maybe could of stayed, but there's no way you would have been able to come by so soon after—anyway that part is not important. I wanted you to hear…I wanted to say," Greg stammered.

I laid my hand on his arm, so that it was almost like I was holding him, but not quite. "Thanks," he whispered, and sat for a long while before opening his mouth again. "I love you. I wanted to say 'I love you,' and you know—I…I love you Jimmy. And I was sort of hoping you would hear it, and believe me, and then say it back. Even though you'd said it before, wanted to hear it again. I just—I realized that the two of us are really supposed to—whatever, and it seemed really important for me to tell you. I dunno, maybe I was being stupid."

"Greg," I told him, calmly and in as gentle a voice as I could manage. "You are not being stupid, and I am so proud of you—I don't think you can even really understand it. I know how big of a deal this is, and I love you too." I kissed the side of his head. "I love you too, House."


End file.
